Hi, I recently purchased a router, it has been working except when someone tries to connect to my computer. I’ve been to places like whatsmyipaddress.com and it tells me one ip, but the other IP i’ve found is representative of my router so, this computer is something like —.---.1.2 the other computer in my house is —.---.1.3. Anyways, I’ve tried both the whatsmyipaddress.com IP and the router IP to connect to my telnet server, neither can access it. Not only does that not work, but I cannot play several games which require you to set up a server and friends to connect. Any help on this is appreciated, maybe it’s a firewall or something? I have no idea. Thanks.
Bet anything you’ve got a NAT firewall in your router. This type of hardware firewall “hides” your true IP from the rest of the network, which includes the internet. Check your router documentation, there may be a way to disable it temporarily. If you’re concerned about security, have a software firewall, like ZoneAlarm running when you have NAT disabled.
You don’t need to disable NAT, nor can you actually do this effectively on most routers and still have multiple PCs work with the proper protection. QED, I hope you are making a mistake and talking about something else, because the advice you are giving is not correct at all.
The OP needs to enable Port Forwarding, which is where the router passes a certain port or ports through to a specific computer inside your firewall. Typically, your game software will tell you which ports need to be forwarded.
As for your telnet server, you need to pass through the telnet ports you have decided to use (if non-standard). For example, I run a web server, so port 80 gets sent through to the server that has the web server, and to no other PC. IRC needs port 113 (or did at one time), FTP needs port 21, mail port 25…you get the picture. Unless I do this, everything inside my house that wants to be a server is dead to the world.
You could also configure your router so that your machine is the DMZ. Your router will basically forward every request to your machine, while leaving NAT in place and working.
What Anthracite and Joey G sez. When someone tries to join a game you start, their computer is connecting to your router. Your router doesn’t know anything about this, so no gameage occurs. Same thing for telnet.
If you go with the port-forwarding scheme, forward port 23 to whichever computer is the server. This will require that you look up which other ports to forward, which should be in most every gaming FAQ. Going the other way might be easier, but your machine would be more exposed, which might be why you got the router to begin with.